cutie pie..

A lovely shop I have just noticed here in Melbourne (great window displays) if you are interested in children's wear and vintage toys check this out LOVE the vintage cutie kewpie dolls.

photo originally seen on my poppet

Gardenia's for the hair

I thought Nicole Kidman looked beautiful in her hair flowers and have just added my version to our store Julie Fleming for the diva's out there. These are classic and very lifelike gardenia's.

Sun Hats for the shop Ivory Sisal

This is the latest Ivory Sun Hat I have made for the shop and how lucky was I - just had enough of this lovely vintage straw trim to put around the crown - with one bobble left over !

This type of trim was always made by hand and is just small strip straw rolled on it's edge and stitched into place, this type of straw is pretty hard to find these days and I have had this piece of trim for I don't know how long I came across it at the bottom of a box while looking for trims for a couple of child's hats I made for the final day at the racing - two matching little sisters - they had adorable matching white lace Collette Dinnigan dresses.

How to Sew Bow detail on Sunhat

8) The finished item ! (hopefully looking very 'southern belle' rather than KFC 'Dickie bow')

7) Add elastic so the creation won't blow away !

6) Tie tack the two tops (loops) of the bow into place and the two ties using cream for the brim (no ugly black cotton on the underside of the brim).

5) Position onto the hat hold in place with some pins, sew from behind and under the head fitting of the hat...tricky but easy if you know how. No need to overdue this bit as just a couple of stitches either side of the center is all you need. One of the old ladies I used to work with in London said that you needed 'fairy fingers' to do some parts of millinery and I have yet to find a better description.

4) The finished bow.

3) Next add the center of the bow stitch in place at back.

2) Workout the position to make sure that the join of the band underneath is hidden under the middle of the bow.

1) Start with the two loops for the top and then add the ties, hand sew all into place.

Just a quick little instruction to putting a snappy little bow on a straw hat these little bows have been inspired by the hat Nicole Kidman is wearing in the movie 'Australia'. A favourite of mine for a long time this style of bow really adds the finishing touch to a beautiful sunhat and seeing Nicole wearing this hat reminded me of this type of bow. I think I must have made so many of them over the years and have added some photo's so you can see how to construct and sew a bow like this onto a hat successfully (!) I made mine on this occasion out of four separate pieces of ribbon but I do make them on occasions just by tying the bow from one piece of ribbon but that really does take a lot of skill and hard to photograph one handed. Just in case you are wondering yes I left the little stalks on the black straw rather than trim them off as I think they add some graphic interest. More variations on the big sun hat to follow.